Of all the burdens Manhattan has borne this January, the imminent closing of the 24-hour Midtown West Rite Aid hardly qualifies as a tragedy. But the fact that an otherwise-thriving major corporation is giving up on core Manhattan matters for our decaying borough.
The pharmacy, on 8th Avenue and 50th Street, will close Feb. 8. Last week, it was effectively already shuttered, with most of the store cordoned off with gates. Just a small, strange assortment — children’s coloring books jumbled with vitamins — was marooned on front shelves on “clearance.”
The clearance prices were ironic — because the reason the Rite Aid is closing is mass-scale shoplifting. As The Post reported last week, the shop lost $200,000 in goods in two months.
This store’s workers have had a rough two years. In June 2020 — the summer of “peaceful protests” — the shop suffered looting. The windows were broken and $60,000 worth of drugs stolen.
The Rite Aid was then completely covered in plywood for days.
Since then, the store’s workers — mostly people of color — have suffered the strain of constant disorder.
Shoplifting is traumatizing to employees not just because they must contend with the implied threat of violence that goes along with brazen all-day theft. Shoplifting without consequences also attracts people you don’t want to spend time around.
Oh, yes, you can say that the thieves need help and deserve our compassion — if you ignore the fact that they’re mostly selling the stuff they steal for drug money and if you’re not bumping into them at your workplace.
The disorder spills outside. Until two years ago, this street corner never featured aggressive beggars or drug-addled people fighting on the sidewalk. But that’s who your “customers” become when the goods are “free.” Last week, an off-duty cop shot a knife-wielding assailant just outside an uptown Duane Reade.
Now the Midtown Rite Aid’s chronic shoplifters have claimed collateral damage in people’s livelihoods. Yes, Rite Aid says that employees at this store can work at another one. But as the company isn’t opening any new store to replace this one, Manhattan is losing employment for people who don’t have a job yet but might like one.
As of December, New York City was missing 13% of its pre-pandemic retail jobs, compared with 1% for the nation as a whole.
Manhattan has fared worse. The data aren’t as current, but as of 2021’s second quarter, the borough was missing 28 percent of its retail jobs, while the city was missing 17 percent.
This is a dizzying turnaround. When Rite Aid opened this location nearly 25 years ago, it correctly bet on the future of Midtown West and Hell’s Kitchen. It was the anchor store of a new apartment building, replacing a parking lot in an iffy neighborhood. Until 2020, the area thrived.
The company is betting now that the future will be dimmer.
And no, the culprit isn’t online shopping. Until two years ago, this store was packed, and it retained its local customers during the pandemic. I was there once a week for laundry detergent, shampoo and the like — and I was never alone.
The store has lost tourist and office-worker customers, sure. But the city has made this surmountable challenge worse. We all know by now that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will treat violent robberies as mere shoplifting — which means that shoplifting won’t be prosecuted at all.
The Rite Aid’s disappearance is a result of our urban failures, but it will also contribute to them. A big, bright, all-night store attracts people to live in the neighborhood and corporate tenants to rent office space at the kitty-corner Worldwide Plaza skyscraper. Babies need diapers in the middle of the night, and office workers need prescriptions filled in the afternoon.
Now, potential tenants will see an empty hulk — one that will almost certainly be boarded up after vagrants smash the windows.
This half-block being empty will also harm neighborhood safety, such as it is. If you’re inclined to go out after dark, which is unwise lately, it’s better to walk by a well-populated store than by a half-block vacant space.
Urbanist Jane Jacobs once called this kind of thing “eyes on the street,” keeping people safe without police. The eyes of unsentimental corporate investors now don’t like what they see.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/30/shoplifting-kills-a-rite-aid-and-maybe-manhattans-comeback-chances/
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